Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Book Ends: "Eyebrows and Other Fish" by Anthony Scally

“Eyebrows
and Other Fish” is a self published book written by a mental health
consumer from England. I found the book to be both extremely
impressive and interesting.

The
impressive parts of the book is what I found to be the amazing
insight Mr. Scally has into his schizophrenia, its manifestations and
consequences. The truly impressive part is his keen awareness of the
full picture even when he is going through the worst of his symptoms,
including extreme paranoia and obsessiveness, for example. He is able
to identify when he is being paranoid and obsessive, and can relate
it in full detail, which I will give a partial example of later.

Mr. Scally
also does an excellent job when it comes to defining what he is
facing and what he has to deal with when going through an episode.
One example is that absolutely everything he reads, hears or sees
takes on added significance and he must analyze it backwards,
forwards and sideways. Things such as advertisements, license plates
and colors all have special, important meanings that must be figured
out. It becomes a mission to him.

The
interesting parts of the book to me are the details of the thought
patterns that go on while Mr. Scally is going through an episode.
Just one of the many examples in the book is as follows: His
girlfriend’s mother had given him a present of aftershave with the
word BOSS on it (I’m assuming Hugo BOSS). This immediately got Mr.
Scally to thinking this was a way of the mother letting him know that
his girlfriend was sleeping with her boss and that is how he got the
crabs he had just contracted a few weeks ago, and that this was her
way of warning him about her daughter. Or perhaps, he then thought,
the gift was the mother’s way of saying that she was the boss and
that she holds all the cards. Then his thoughts raced to the
possibility that maybe BOSS stood for something, perhaps “Back Off,
She’s Sorry,” or “Brain Operation Soon, Scally.”

This book
chronicles Mr. Scally’s life from 1990-2006. During this time he
has many good phases and some dark ones, too. As with many people
that have psychiatric disabilities, he has stopped taking his
medications on numerous occasions, and that is usually when his
symptoms started to reoccur.

It would be
so easy to condemn Mr. Scally for ceasing to take his medication
while they were obviously working, but once again, he does an
excellent job in explaining their debilitating side effects. He
writes that, in addition to the various side effects he suffered,
from muscle stiffness, Parkinsonism, erectile dysfunction, constant
dry mouth and sedation, that the medication also “impedes my
momentum for life itself.” After reading that, it is very easy to
see the struggle of medication vs. side effects.

I did not
even get into Mr. Scally’s childhood, which sadly was horrific, nor
his support system, which between his girlfriend, social worker and
advocacy group is for the most part pretty good. You’ll have to
read the book to find out more, which I totally recommend you do.